


the distance from 'a' to where you'd be

by khakis



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Blow Job, Fingering, M/M, an oil spill of gross feelings, my apologies, this does indeed feature ambiguous time travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-04
Updated: 2013-10-04
Packaged: 2017-12-28 09:09:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/990266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khakis/pseuds/khakis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Replay?” Louis murmurs, not moving his face from Liam’s collarbones.</p><p>“Oh,” Liam says, because duh. This Louis hasn’t ever heard of Replay. He hasn’t <i>invented</i> it yet. “Forget it,” he says, “and please just tell me what’s eating you?”</p><p>Louis pulls back, then, still wrapped in and around Liam but with enough space between them that he can drag his nose up the range of Liam’s jaw with unsurprising confidence. “I feel like,” he begins, his mouth brushing just enough against the fine lines of Liam’s ear to make him shiver involuntarily. “I feel like you probably have a lot to teach me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	the distance from 'a' to where you'd be

**Author's Note:**

> after a truly terrible message i received on tumblr about how pretty 18 year old louis would look with present day liam, i literally could not let go of the idea ([do you blame me](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BT6yzf8CAAA3l-H.png)) and this is the result.
> 
> so many thanks to everyone who egged me on, but especially to em and to the incomparable alora, who is responsible for this being readable.
> 
> title from set fire to the third bar by snow patrol feat. martha wainwright 
> 
> also, it's abundantly clear that i am not british, and i'd like to apologize for that.

-

“Liam? Li, you in there?”

Louis’ voice sounds funny on the other side of the door. It’s something about his tone, maybe. Possibly it’s the way the rap of his knuckles is far more tentative than his usual - which isn’t so much of a knock as it is an opening of the door without preamble and then tossing himself bodily into Liam’s vicinity. 

“Li-am?” he calls again, and something is definitely up. Liam is pretty sure that when he’d spoken to Louis just a few minutes ago - when Louis’d called to tell Liam that he and Niall had just ordered one of everything on the room service menu - his voice had definitely not been as high or as concerned as it sounds right now. 

Liam’s only in a pair of trackies, lounging in bed considering a wank before sleep. He considers pulling on a shirt as he heads towards where Louis is still knocking, but it’s nothing Louis hasn’t seen before and his tone seems urgent, so Liam crosses to the door and swings it open in his current state of half-undress. He’s prepared, he thinks, steeling himself for just about anything other than what he actually finds on the other side.

“Oh thank god, Liam - ” Louis starts, and then he falters, trailing off with wide eyes and a small, impulsive step backwards. “Liam,” he says one more time, faintly, then “ _oh_ ” as he sinks into a sit in the hallway outside of Liam’s room, ducking his head into his hands. His soft, swoopy-hair-tucked-into-a-beanie head, stubble-free and golden and very, very much like an 18 year old that Liam had known quite intimately several years ago. Liam feels rather like sitting down himself.

Liam has always figured he’d be good in a crisis, all things considered, but if this is a crisis he’s doing a terrible job of handling it. He thinks, distantly, that this probably can’t be real, that there are laws of one of the sciences that make it clear people can only age in one direction (ha) and can only move forward in time and things of that sort. 

All he can do at the moment, though, is stare rather blankly at the version of his best friend who has apparently regressed 3 years in the past 13 minutes and then appeared outside of Liam’s door. “Bloody _what_ ,” is all he can manage, weakly. He’s trying to gather himself to do something, _anything_ of use or assurance when Louis’ head rolls up, the look of determination in his eyes both familiar and an echo of memory all at once.

“Language, Liam,” he says with an unsteady smile, his voice like something out of Liam’s own 16-year-old wet dreams. “Well, then. I’m clearly still asleep and dreaming this. Isn’t that funny? Explains why I’m in a hotel I’ve never seen before. Suppose my subconscious has finally decided to take action on my innermost fantasies.” He manages a suggestive eyebrow waggle, almost every inch the Louis Liam knows.

“Found this in my pocket,” Louis continues, clamoring to his feet and pressing a room key with _Liam_ scrawled across the top in Paul’s careful handwriting into Liam’s hand. It feels in Liam’s palm like a clue that only leads to more questions, muddying everything up rather than helping to clarify. Louis pushes past Liam into the hotel room after only a small moment of hesitation, the crooked, uncertain grin that Liam remembers so vividly from their early days on the XFactor attached securely to Louis’ face like a Halloween mask, or a shield.

Liam follows him into the room feeling as though he’s trying to sort his way through a dense fog, his body gone hazy and shivery but still holding onto at least enough coherency to shut the door behind himself. Louis’ back is to Liam, but he notices immediately that there are differences in him compared to the boy he left plastered to a game of FIFA with Niall under an hour ago. The smattering of doodled tattoos have gone from his forearm, and from a distance Liam can still tell he’s a bit shorter. Even the hair escaping from his beanie at the narrow nape of his neck is too long. 

Louis is standing with his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, a bright red pair that are plastered to his thighs, and it’s the sight of them more than anything that makes Liam’s head spin. They’re the exact trousers that Liam _knows_ Louis had to toss out a year and a half ago after he tore holes in both of the knees while attempting to climb over a fence. He remembers them vividly, because Louis had insisted Liam preside over the funeral he held in honor of their passing, and Liam knows with a certainty he has only felt a few times in his life that these are the same pair. 

“Nice room,” Louis comments, and it’s so underwhelming given the current circumstances that Liam has to choke back his disbelieving gasp of a laugh.

“You have one just like it next door, Lou,” he finally manages, and Louis raises his eyebrows hopefully. 

“Do I really? I only just found myself in the hallway with your room key, didn’t even think to look for my own. Is this a gaze-into-the-future dream, then,” he asks, “Like where you tell me that we’re going become even more wildly successful as a band and won’t even have to share rooms in fancy hotels anymore?”

 _Not a dream_ , Liam thinks wildly, but he nods anyway. 

“That’ll certainly make room for an improvement in my wank schedule,” Louis says, one corner of his mouth tugging upwards, but it’s a half-arsed joke, undermined by the way his shoulders slump as he perches on the edge of Liam’s bed and tucks his hands under his thighs. God, Liam is _useless_ , can’t stop just _looking_ at Louis. His brain is betraying him with reminders of more than one hasty wank session in various hotel showers, his hand rough on his cock and his brain filled with scattered images of Louis’ legs: Liam kissing his way up the backs of them, Liam kneeling in front of Louis, hands gripping the backs of those tensed thighs, Louis Louis _Louis_ -

“If this is the future, do we all get to be as fit as you, or is that a Liam-exclusive privilege?” Liam’s settled himself next to Louis on the sagging edge of the bed, although settled is a generous term given that he feels like jumping out of his skin. Louis accompanies his enquiry with tentative fingers against the definition in Liam’s arm, and the question snaps him out of his reverie. He really should be used to this kind of compliment by now, given what he and his present day Louis have been through, but something about this Louis’ face, brave and joking but concerned underneath it all, has him blushing like he’s 17 all over again. 

Liam breathes it in, tries to imagine what Louis would do if their positions were reversed at this moment, how Louis would tuck him under his metaphorical wing and smooth his hair back and make him laugh and believe that nothing’s wrong at all with the space time continuum as they know it.

He takes the chance, grabs blindly at the opportunity that’s fallen into his lap even as he’s unsure of what exactly it is. “You know, I used to think that it was impossible for you to ever get fitter than you are right now,” Liam says slowly, gesturing in Louis’ direction, and suddenly Louis’ eyes are focused on his in a way that grounds Liam, anchoring him with the attention, just as it’s always done. “But, trust me,” he continues as he grins at Louis, “it’s going to happen.” 

There’s something both sweet and sexy about the way Louis’ cheeks color, the duck of his head as his fingers tighten where they’re still wrapped around Liam’s forearm, flexing as he pulls in a sharp breath at Liam’s words.

“I’ve had big dreams about corrupting you for a while, Liam Payne,” he says after a moment, head bowing towards his lap. “Looks like someone might have beat me to it,” he adds ruefully. “Give them my regards, yeah?”

Liam has no idea how to respond, choking on the irony that’s clouding thick and heavy in his throat. Would it break some rule of whatever bizarre time travel has led them to this point to tell this Louis that he _was_ (or, more aptly, that he _will be_ ) the person who corrupted Liam, but that that’s all still in his future? That he mostly has himself to either blame or thank for the person that Liam has become?

It feels strangely comfortable to sling his arm around Louis’ hunched shoulders, to tug him into a hug that fits them both surprisingly well given that they’ve never quite met like this before. Louis melts into Liam’s side as though he’s experimenting with osmosis, and the surge of protectiveness that rides up in Liam leaves him nearly breathless. This is the boy who got them through XFactor on his instinctive leadership and careful teasing, whose outbursts were more a sign of his own uncertainty than his desire to be the center of attention. 

Liam remembers chronicling Louis’ slow gain of confidence, the moments that he’d all but glowed in his role as their unofficial leader and had begun to let go of his near-crippling fear of letting them all down. To have that boy tucked warm and trembling under his arm again, his carefully constructed façade of confidence buckled on like armor, is more than enough to convince Liam that he isn’t hallucinating, that whatever fucked up time morph is happening is real, not the dream that Louis has decided to believe it is.

Liam thumbs over the shoulder that he has cupped in his hand, bones which feel small and fragile under his broad palm. The Louis he knows now is almost too big, too cosmic for his own skin, brash and thoughtful and goofy and kind, and it makes Liam shiver to think of the seeds of all of that which are already growing inside this boy, perched carefully next to him, one of his braces slipping off of his shoulder and the neck of his shirt stretched over his collarbones by his own worrying fingers. Liam knows that Louis isn’t done growing yet, that right now he’s still an explosive mass of potential sitting next to him in this hotel room in the middle of America. Louis sighs into the touch, his beanie sliding off the soft hair of his fringe as he nuzzles in closer to Liam’s heated skin.

“Li,” Louis says softly, and god, it’s a punch in the throat, the nickname carving out a home like a national monument against Liam’s shoulder. This is the era, Liam remembers, of when Louis had first started calling him that, sometimes _Leem_ , sometimes even _Leemur_. He remembers the heat in the tips of his ears when he’d realized with unshakeable certainty that Louis loved him enough to call him by an affectionate name, remembers the night after Louis’d hollered _Li_ down the echoing halls of a venue after him for the first time, remembers lying in bed grinning like an idiot, too hyped on friendship and acceptance to settle down and sleep. He also recalls trying out _Lou_ for the first time, rolling it around uncertainly in his mouth and finding sustenance for a week afterward in the 150-watt smile that had lit up Louis’ face.

Louis says his name again, quiet, and it startles Liam out of his ghost of memory. “Yeah?” he says by way of reply, meeting Louis’ eyes as he tilts his head up where it’s still resting against Liam’s shoulder. “This _is_ a dream, right?” Louis asks, his voice heavy with the need for reassurance and maybe permission.

Liam knows it’s not, knows as surely as he knows that Louis’ wearing trousers that were thrown away years ago, but he’s also pretty sure that Louis knows it’s not, too. “I dunno, Lou,” he says, breathing deep, his voice much more steady than his heartbeat. “Do you dream about me often?”

The look that Louis casts him, then, up through his soft eyelashes and softer fringe, are enough to shoot goosebumps across Liam’s skin, little foraged trails of sensation. The tip of Louis’ tongue flicks out at the corner of his mouth, and when he opens it to speak, his hoarse “ _yeah_ ” of acknowledgement is laced through with rust and what Liam knows all too well to be the beginnings of arousal.

“Is that so?” Liam hums, and then tugs them both backwards until they’re lying flat against his bed, Louis still tucked solidly against him, their legs dangling over the edge and thighs flush together. “D’you think about us together, then?” Louis’ breath hitches as he nods, and Liam speaks again without censoring himself, an electrical storm raging in his veins. “Really. I wonder what kinds of things you like to imagine. Maybe...maybe me holding you down, yeah?” 

Liam’s taking a chance on this one, but it’s not as big of a gamble as it feels. He remembers his Louis telling him lowly, a little way down the fumbling trail of discoveries that they’d made together, that he’d had dreams for months about Liam holding him down, pinning his arms in the small of his back or above his head, against walls or the arms of chairs. It’s a memory that comes to Liam with the unparalleled clarity that accompanies remembering something which shifted his entire world onto a new axis. Louis’d thought at the time, hiding his face in a nearby pillow, that the admission was one of weakness; Liam had been sure that it was one of the bravest things he’d ever been told.

Louis gasps a little where he’s turned into the broad swath of Liam’s chest, and when he meets Liam’s eyes again his cheeks are stained with what may be embarrassment but is definitely arousal. “You’re not playing fair,” he says, but he doesn’t look all that perturbed. It’s a funny twist, one that doesn’t escape Liam: the fact that the person who’s made it a full-time job, responsibility and pleasure to make Liam blush for _years_ is now flushing darkly at Liam’s own hand.

“Tell me, Future-Liam,” Louis begins after collecting himself for a moment, his words marinating in a familiar wryness and sounding daring even through his blush. “Do my dreams ever come true, then?”

Liam grins. He supposes, rather distantly, that the way to handle a time-travelling member of his band would be to have, say, called Paul by this point, or to at least have alerted the rest of his band, or, honestly, to have tried to find the present-day version of the boy who is currently daring and unsure and snug up against him to sort this all out. He doesn’t feel particularly inclined to do any of those things, though, somehow sure that this portal of a hotel room is keeping them safe and warm and cocooned from whatever kind of magical or scientific anarchy is going on outside his door. It seems his more sensible side has officially been outweighed.

“What did Simon say to us every week before our XFactor performances?” Liam asks (instead of doing the responsible thing, like worrying at least a bit about time and space and other subjects he probably would have failed the A Levels for). Louis goes both still against him, tensed, and Liam is sure that Louis knows exactly to what Liam is referring.

Suddenly, Louis is clamoring up onto his elbows next to Liam, looking him dead in the eye and also looking more like the self he’s going to become (give or take a few years and number one songs) than he has since Liam opened the door. “Simon said,” Louis begins on a deep breath, pausing to crinkle his eyes in a mirror of Liam as they both register the pun. “Simon said that dreams were no good unless we made them happen for ourselves.”

“Very good, Lou. Full marks.” Liam can’t help his laugh at the expression on Louis’ face, like he’s just been presented with a table full of sweets and told he can eat whatever he wants but that he only has a minute to do so.

“Liam Payne, you minx,” he says after a moment. “Are you telling me it’s up to my own self to enact my dreams? That everything I want is just - up to me to take?”

Liam shrugs, aiming for nonchalance with the gesture, but the way Louis rolls his eyes in an all-too familiar manner tells him that he’s failed spectacularly. “You’ve become a right _menace_ , haven’t you,” Louis grumbles, but it’s his most loving and pleased type of complaint. He’s already moving to plant his knees on either side of Liam’s narrow hips, and his weight is comfortable and new all at once. It makes Liam’s spine shiver. 

Liam feels a bit like he’s turning inside out, bursting from within himself at the sensory overload. His current reality is overlayed with vivid memories of when Louis’d climbed on top of him for the first time and meant it, his teeth kind but unforgiving at the hollow of Liam’s throat and his grip on Liam’s jaw possessive and triumphant all at once. 

“It’s your own fault, Lou,” Liam says, his voice scraping from his throat like the admission is taking something tangible out of him. “It’s your own goddamn fault.”

This isn’t the first time that Liam’s kissed Louis, but it occurs to him at the heated press of their mouths that it probably _is_ the first time Louis’ kissed Liam. This Louis, at least. Retrospectively, Liam knows everything about the Louis hovering over him, knows he’s only kissed one other boy and meant it, knows he really did think he maybe loved Hannah, knows that it hasn’t been particularly long since this Louis thought Liam was stuffy and boring and far too serious to be truly bothered with.

It’s a kind of kiss like Liam’s never had before, no matter how much it resembles one of them. It’s weighty and unbalanced all at once, the levels of understanding between them skewed like they’ve never been before. What hasn’t changed in the last three years, though, is the wanting, and the wild look in Louis’ eyes when he pulls away to catch his breath matches the way Liam has felt about Louis nearly every day since they were thrown together so precisely it’s blinding. 

Louis bows his head back down, mouth warm and certain, his lips parting under the gentle slick of Liam’s tongue with a small, broken sound. His arms are trembling a bit, where he’s still propped up on them, and Liam pulls away for a moment to haul Louis down against his chest, awed by how much smaller the spread of Louis’ shoulders feels under his hands than he’s used to.

“You okay?” Liam asks, reaching up to drag a finger along the curve of Louis’ ear, predicting the responding shiver before it comes.

“This is some dream,” Louis says by way of answer, drawing a hand against the glisten of his mouth before ducking back down to kiss at the corner of Liam’s. “Vivid as anything.” He’s going for joking, eyes wide and exaggerating and one eyebrow quirked, but Liam knows better than to overlook the ridge of fear riding under the surface of Louis’ skin.

There’s an itch at the back of Liam’s brain, telling him how messed up this is and what a horrid version of himself he’s being, not to at least attempt to sort this mess out before going in for the snog. There’s a bigger part of him, though, that wants more than anything to impress this Louis, to show him how not-sensible Liam can be. _This_ Louis still knows him as the boy who doesn’t drink, who doles out cuddles like they’re costing him something. It’s overpowering, and it’s also making Liam feel like _he’s_ younger again, like he’s still the kid waiting for Louis to burst his world wide-open. 

“D’you really think this is just a dream?” He murmurs, and Louis looks at him unsteadily for a moment before moving to tuck his head against Liam’s neck. His breath is warm and wuffles out sweetly against Liam’s skin, and the shake of his head is near imperceptible. He says something lowly, so quietly that Liam can’t hear it. “What was that, babe?” Liam asks, reaching up to card a hand through the soft hair above Louis’ neck, beanie long since abandoned against the sheets.

“I said, ‘I don’t want it to be,’” Louis repeats, just loudly enough this time to be heard, and something in his voice tugs Liam upwards like he’s been caught on a fishing line. The movement pulls Louis up with him, despite the dismayed little noise he makes and his best efforts to keep his face buried in Liam’s neck. Liam manages to wrangle it so that Louis’ still on his lap and tucked against him even as they’re sitting.

“Hey,” Liam says, his voice low and scratched like a well-played record, his hand still scritching at Louis’ hair. “Hey, Lou, look at me?” 

Louis’ eyes are soft and worried and embarrassed and lovely and Liam can’t remember the last time he felt so protective. “Louis,” he begins again, soothing his thumb along the edge of one golden cheekbone. “D’you really not think that you’d ever get to this place with me, time travel aside? Could it only be possible for us to get together in a dream of yours?”

Louis lets out the smallest of sighs, dropping his gaze and turning his face back into Liam’s collarbones. “I didn’t know that you were ever going to want me like I want you,” he says, his voice surprisingly strong. “I didn’t know.”

“Do you remember that night in the XFactor house? When you found me after I’d been crying on the phone to my mum?” Liam asks, and Louis nods, his breath a steady metronome count against Liam’s skin as he speaks. “I was sure for a minute that you were going to take the piss, maybe call Niall and tell him all about what a mummy’s boy I was, how serious Payno was really just a big, dumb softie underneath all my fretting.”

“I didn’t think that - ” Louis starts, pulling his head back, the corners of his mouth worrying themselves into a sweet little frown.

“I know,” Liam cuts him off. “I know, and I knew then as soon as you pulled me into a hug and told me to set up FIFA and went off to make me tea. And I knew when I heard Aiden asking if I was alright and you told him I was quite fine and you had it under control, that you were taking care of me. That was it, really, after that there wasn’t a moment where I didn’t want you or wouldn’t have had you, had I ever thought it possible you’d be interested. Somewhere, 17-year-old me is pining quite pathetically for you at this very moment.”

“You aren’t pathetic,” Louis says, and he presses the tiniest of kisses against where his mouth is resting by the juncture of Liam’s shoulder and neck.

“Are you sure?” Liam says. “After all, I am the same boy who thought Africa and Australia were on the same continent for a while.”

“Well,” Louis’ laughing now, a bit, and he sounds so much like himself that Liam’s heart aches underneath the shelter of his ribs. “Well I suppose you might be an inch or two pathetic, but it’s nothing I couldn’t drive out of you with a few well-timed nipple twists.”

“You trained me with those like a puppy with a spray bottle,” Liam says, and he’s full on grinning now, Louis’ body grown almost unbearably hot against his own where they’re plastered together and Louis’ eyes crinkling up so cutely that it’s embarrassing how hard Liam’s heart pounds. It’s only when he glances over at the clock and realizes it’s nearly midnight, and that he has an early rise in the morning, that he thinks about what might happen next. He wonders where his phone’s got to, why no one’s tried to come knock down his door, room service offerings in hand.

Liam pushes Louis up and off of his lap, swatting him lightly on the bum. “As much as I’d love to tell you more about how terribly well you have me trained, I’m all tired out,” he says, turning back the sheets on the bed carefully and deliberately. “How about we get some sleep and deal with this whole mess of a universe in the morning, then?”

“Whatever you say, love,” Louis replies, his voice faltering a bit on the automatic endearment. He looks at Liam and then the bed a little uncertainly, his cheeks faintly pink, until Liam laughs and tugs him down. 

“It’s not like we’ve never shared a bed before, babe,” he supplies by way of reassurance, and Louis shoots him a look that says _you know very well I’ve never shared a bed like this with you before._

It’s warm with the two of them in the bed, but Liam likes it, likes the comfort and heat and the way their bodies instinctively curl towards each other after Louis’ shimmied out of his trousers and shirt and Liam turns off the bedside lamp. It’s one of the fancy ones that the nicer hotels they stay in sometimes have, and it takes him an embarrassingly long time to fumble it off while Louis snickers from behind him. Lord knows why paying more money for a room means it takes a PhD to turn off the lamp.

It seems like the easiest thing in the world, lying there in the inky black of the new darkness with Louis, to reach across the small rift between them and tug Louis’ face in towards his. It’s easy to kiss the tip of his nose, each of his eyelids, to kiss away the quiet, pleased sigh that he makes when Liam’s thumb presses in against the tender spot under his jaw. That much still hasn’t changed, at least.

They kiss without urgency, soft and clean and hot, Liam’s tongue running against the ridge of Louis’ teeth like a beckoning and Louis’ feisty nip against the plump of Liam’s bottom lip laughably familiar. Louis’ body is pliant under Liam’s careful hands, and he tries not to think about the strength and breakability of what he’s holding. The kiss turns deep without preamble, hungry but still slow. It seems to Liam like the moment they’re resting inside of will stretch long and fragile, a soap bubble in the sun. And when Louis starts to fall asleep, his mouth tired and lashes fluttering against Liam’s cheek, it doesn’t feel so very different from the slow-burn August sunsets that Liam loves so much.

-

 

When Liam startles awake, the red numerals on the hotel alarm clock are flashing 4:18 AM, but Liam’s brain is too sleepy and fuzzy to make sense of what he’s looking at. He gropes around half blindly for where he’d left his phone charging at some point last night, and when the screen lights up and he sees the numbers click over to 4:19, it occurs to him in rapid fire succession that it is indeed the time, that the sun hasn’t risen yet, and that he’s in the bed alone.

He takes a moment to gather himself, letting his head flop backwards on the pillow and scrubbing his hands roughly against the backs of his eyes, making the velvety dark under his eyelids burst apart into solar flares. Maybe, it occurs to him, maybe whatever imbalance in the universe that had brought Louis to him had righted itself while Liam was sleeping. He doesn’t think so, though. Zayn always jokes that if Liam had a real superpower, it would be a spidey sense for Louis. He feels it now, feels it fizzing in his chest like the alka seltzer his mum had given him as a kid when he was coming down with a cold.

He rolls over to survey the room, his eyes adjusting slowly through the muddy darkness that’s just barely tinged with the blunt, metallic edge of morning. There’s a warm sense of relief that comes along with the realization that light is leaking out from under the loo door like an oil spill, that Louis must be inside. The relief isn’t alone, though, accompanied by a familiar anxiety that coils itself in Liam’s belly. It’s the same anxiety he felt watching Louis race around backstage in the moments before he’d tripped and sprained his wrist, like seeing Niall’s face just as he’s getting overwhelmed by the press of a particularly enthusiastic crowd. Something isn’t quite right, and it shakes down Liam’s ribs until he manages to plant his feet on the ground and haul himself up, his protective instincts kicking into an adrenaline-amped gear.

Louis doesn’t startle at the sound of the door opening, doesn’t even meet Liam’s eyes in the mirror. He looks disheveled but very awake, a stark contrast to Liam’s still scrunched, blinking eyes, trying to make sense of what’s happening in his loo.

“Good morning,” Louis says, quietly, his eyes still focused on his reflection in the mirror, standing only in his pants. He looks beautiful, Liam thinks sleepily. He has one hand gripped absently around Liam’s half-empty roll of Kingfisher toothpaste; the boys have started to buy other brands out of convenience, but Liam can’t stand to use another kind. He wonders if Louis was contemplating that fact, how it hasn’t changed, letting the toothpaste sit heavy in his hand like an anchor amidst time. The warm light in the room makes the fine hairs on his arm glow like some kind of shimmery, ethereal halo, and his face carries a kind of calm and determination that Liam remembers seeing on Louis before most of the important moments in his own life.

“Hey,” Liam manages to offer, coming all the way into the room and shutting the door behind them. It feels safer this way, somehow, the two of them comfortably ensconced in a white-tiled world. “How’re you feeling about this whole dream, then?”

“You wouldn’t believe, Liam, it’s the strangest thing - ” Louis’ grinning in that wistful, secret way he has when he knows Liam sees through it but wants to play the game anyway. “But I could swear I fell asleep and then woke up _within my dream_.” He’s gripping the edge of the counter with both hands now, but the sharp lines of his back are beginning to smooth out as he talks, his breath evening out to meet Liam’s.

“No way,” Liam grins, “it’s like you’re Leonardo DiCaprio himself.” Louis’ smile falters. “Wait, shit -” Liam says, “has _Inception_ even come out for you yet? Let’s see, it was -”

“Yeah, it’s out,” Louis interrupts. His voice is laced through with something unfamiliar to Liam as he raises his head and meets Liam’s eyes for the first time, laughing a little wryly. “You and I saw it a week ago.” It winds Liam completely. 

Louis watches for a moment, quiet, before turning around for the first time and bracing himself against the counter. “Liam.” 

He tries it again, then, when there’s no response, and it’s enough to snap Liam out of his three-years-gone daze. He feels likes he’s still sitting in the back of a dark theatre with Louis, watching _Inception_ breathlessly. Louis’d grabbed his hand when Mal jumped and hadn’t let go for the whole rest of the movie.

“Lou,” he says in response, and suddenly Louis is on him, their bare torsos flushed and warm against one another, Louis’ nose against the hollow of Liam’s throat and his hands settling daringly just above the waistband of Liam’s trackies. 

Liam hums a bit, his arms hovering awkwardly for just a moment before he settles on curling one up around Louis’ head and managing to reach the other across to wrap his hand around the sweet dip of Louis’ waist. Louis is vibrating against him, something unsaid or unasked fluttering in the bones of his palms, and Liam knows it’s up to him to draw it out.

“Lou-Lou-Lou-Lou,” Liam croons, sweeping the pads of his fingers across Louis’ exposed skin. “Replay whatever you were thinking when I walked in, but out loud.”

“Replay?” Louis murmurs, not moving his face from Liam’s collarbones.

“Oh,” Liam says, because duh. This Louis hasn’t ever heard of Replay. He hasn’t _invented_ it yet. “Forget it,” he says, “and please just tell me what’s eating you?”

Louis pulls back, then, still wrapped in and around Liam but with enough space between them that he can drag his nose up the range of Liam’s jaw with unsurprising confidence. “I feel like,” he begins, his mouth brushing just enough against the fine lines of Liam’s ear to make him shiver involuntarily. “I feel like you probably have a lot to teach me.”

Liam opens his mouth, both not certain and quite certain all at once that Louis _is_ saying what Liam thinks he is, but before he can speak, Louis presses the lightest of kisses against the corner of Liam’s open mouth. “Don’t you dare ask me if I’m sure, Payno,” Louis says, their noses almost touching, words quiet in the electrified space between them. “You bloody well know better than I do how much - and exactly _what_ \- I want.”

A distant part of Liam is suggesting meekly that he may want to consider this a bit further, that maybe they should go make some pot noodles and some tea and think this through. He’s fairly certain that he shouldn’t be getting hard in his pants already, that there’s something hugely backwards about the idea of him teaching Louis everything that _Louis’ taught him_. If he goes with this, will he just be feeding an eternal time loop where he teaches Louis who teaches him so that he can teach Louis and on and on and on? And if he _doesn’t_ , will he and Louis never learn to be together like this?

It all makes his head hurt, really. But the last bit makes his head hurt the most.

So, Liam kisses him. He kisses him, and slides his fingers down the curve of Louis’ waist to tuck under the back of his pants, stroking lightly as Louis arches into him and makes a small, familiar noise against Liam’s mouth.

Liam knows a few things, or, more than a few by now. He knows that no matter how much he complains, Louis likes to be played with a bit; he knows he likes there to be a bit of a sting. He knows that if he bites just - _there_ \- on the skin below Louis’ ear, he’ll be treated by - yep, a shiver and a bitten-off groan. He truly _isn’t_ playing fair, but he can’t pretend he _doesn’t_ know these things and, in his defense, Louis’d asked to be taught. Liam’s spent years letting Louis be as unfair with him as he wanted. If he’s doing this, he’s doing it ten thousand percent.

He walks Louis backwards towards the counter, taking a moment to grind against him when he’s pinned before hoisting him easily up to sit, his thumbs pressing greedily against the burnished skin of Louis’ hips. “Since when can you do _that_?” Louis grins against Liam’s mouth. “Itty Leemo all grown up - ”

Liam cuts him off with a sharp bite to Louis’ bottom lip, effectively silencing him. “I’ll show you grown up,” he rumbles, sounding remarkably less like an arse than the phrase would indicate. Louis’ generous enough or caught up enough or something enough to let it slide, grinning and tugging Liam back in so they can keep at it. Their mouths have lost finesse, now, heated and messy, seeking out more friction. The taste of sleep has dissipated and been replaced with something more base, familiar, hungry. 

Liam manages to wrangle Louis’ pants down until they’re tucked under his balls, and when he pulls away to look, his cock is mostly hard and flushed just as prettily as Liam knew it would be. There’s a trail of slick against the fine hairs below his belly button, and Liam swipes against it with his thumb and slips it into his mouth.

If anything’s reassuring, it’s that Louis still tastes the same. His eyes go as wide as they usually do, too, surprised and turned on and giddy with Liam’s forwardness all at once.

“God, you really have become something else, haven’t you? Fancy yourself rather daring, do you, love?” Louis says, beaming and shrinking away from the retaliation he assumes is coming even as he speaks. Liam just looks at him, lets him squirm a bit, obscene with his cock out and the color high in his cheeks. 

“Clearly with these manners, you don’t want me to touch you, hm?” Liam says, once Louis’ had enough time to look at least minorly repentant. 

“You can’t well leave me like this, can you?” Louis replies, arching an eyebrow and wiggling his bum against the tile. His flush has spread down his chest, creeping towards his pretty nipples, and Liam wants to touch them, pinch them, make Louis yelp. But he doesn’t, not yet.

“Do you want to test that theory?” he says, mildly, stepping back a bit so his only contact with Louis is where his hands are resting lightly on Louis’ tensed thighs. The response comes even more quickly than he expects.

“No, please, I’ll be good,” Louis says, at once, curling his fingers around the tendons of Liam’s wrists like he’s worried Liam could actually walk away from him. Liam’s not sure he’s ever walked away from Louis in his life, and certainly not like this.

“I hope so,” Liam says, which is really all he can manage, and then kneels.

Giving head isn’t Liam’s favorite thing in the whole world (although it may be Louis’, not that he knows yet). The tile is unforgiving and cold against his knees, but the strangled noise Louis makes, the way his hands flutter uncertainly as Liam licks wetly up the underside of his cock, is more than enough reward.

The sink is a bit too high for Liam to be able to really take Louis in, but that’s probably a good thing. Louis already seems wound tightly enough to explode, like a clock ticking itself towards destruction. Liam can feel his own dick, fat and heavy in his trackies as he licks his hand, wraps it just-too-tightly around the base of Louis’ cock as he nuzzles against his balls. He smirks a little to himself as one of Louis’ knees nearly hits him in the face in response, and when he looks up, Louis’ thunked his head back against the mirror like it’s all too much to bear.

Liam turns his head a bit, his hand still making obscene noises against Louis’ cock, and plants a trail of tiny kisses up Louis’ thigh, an inseam sewn from the press of lips and scrape of teeth. He goes over the line a few times, wishing he could print it into Louis’ skin, relishing the charged silence as Louis’ hips make aborted jerks up into Liam’s working hand.

“Liam,” Louis chokes after a bit, as Liam carefully presses his thumbnail against Louis’ slit, messy with precome. He drags his head forward from its resting place against the mirror, several soft strands of his hair already slicked against his forehead, stalagmites of fringe. His head looks almost too heavy on his neck, lolling forward a bit as he reaches one hand towards Liam’s face, as open and imploring as his expression. “Liam - ”

Liam hears the entire universe of what Louis is saying inside of his name, leans his face into Louis’ open, pleading palm and says, “You can come if you want. You can come now and that can be it, or we can try a few more things. But you can come.”

Louis’ never done this with Liam before, never talked with him on sunset-dusky hotel balconies about _permission_ and everything that can mean, but the way his forehead smoothes out at Liam’s words is enough of an indication that he will, someday. Liam reaches his other hand down, presses it against Louis’ perineum as he drags his hand up Louis’ cock once more, mouthing against his balls. He twists his hand, almost too roughly, as above him Louis’ head drops with a quiet cry, his stomach jumping as he comes, his body jolting like he’s trying to burst out of his skin, eyes screwed shut. Liam’s own dick is bleeding heat and need through the fabric of his trackies, the edge of desperation making him throb in sympathy as Louis’ slit dribbles out a last blurt of come against his belly.

Liam’s knees are aching as he hauls himself up from the floor, wetting a flannel placed handily by the sink to clean Louis up, having managed to get come against even his collarbones.

“Handy, that,” Louis finally says, and his voice has dropped down a notch, silvery with leftover orgasm. “Bet they weren’t thinking, ‘hm, perhaps some popstars will clean up come with this towel if we place it just here’ when they put it there.” 

“Bet you’re right,” Liam affirms quietly, wiping his hands against his trackies and moving to stand between Louis’ still spread thighs. “You were so good for me, Lou,” he murmurs, thumbs steady against Louis jaw as he smiles at the praise, a slow simmer. “You ready to go back to sleep?”

“You haven’t come,” Louis points out, and then bravely presses the warm palm of his hand against where Liam is making his needs known through his pants. Liam has to bite his lip to keep from embarrassing himself.

“God, Liam,” Louis sighs, his strong fingers exploring eagerly and making the muscles in Liam’s shoulders jump. “I don’t mean to sound like a porno, but you’ve got a bloody huge dick.”

It startles a laugh out of Liam, and then one from Louis again, looking quite pleased with himself. “C’mon,” Liam says, taking Louis’ exploring hand in his own and helping him off the counter, where he promptly steps out of his pants completely. 

“Won’t be needing ‘em,” he explains with a shrug at Liam’s raised brows. 

Liam turns the light out behind them when they leave, forgetting for a moment how dark the room would be without it. The grey of the coming morning has steeped between the cracks of the curtains just a bit more since he woke up, like a brew coming to its perfect flavor and saturation.

Rather than finding a light switch, they move stealthily and carefully in the general direction of the bed together, Louis nearly tripping over his own discarded trousers and Liam stepping on what he’s fairly certain is a plug, though to what he couldn’t say. Louis erupts in giggles when he curses, though, and they have to pause so Liam can kiss the life out of him for being so cheeky and for sounding so cute.

Liam is still hard, hard enough to want attention, but their harrowing obstacle course run took a bit of the edge off. If he’s going to do this right, he may as well bring Louis with him. His eyes have adjusted just enough to make out the planes of Louis’ face, the shyness and the eagerness and the determination. He thinks about how _weird_ this must be, how completely unfathomable, and how beautifully Louis is handling it. He thinks about how beautiful Louis is, too.

Together they push the duvet to the end of the bed, and then it’s Louis’ turn to surprise Liam, tugging him down until he’s on his back, sprawled comfortably. “Can I take these off?” Louis near-whispers, like being out in the room instead of the loo calls for a different code of etiquette. He’s tugging at the waistband of Liam’s trackies and pants, and Liam is all too happy to shift his hips until they can come off. The cool air of the room is a shock, but it’s nothing compared to Louis straddling him, knees bracketing his hips and his weight settling down until Liam can feel Louis’ cock against his own, fattening up again, just a bit. 

“I want to learn you,” Louis says, and instead of asking what that means, Liam lets him. He tries to relax as Louis starts running his hands over Liam, fingers skittering playfully across the trail of his collarbones and palms sweeping heavy and warm over his abdomen. His thumbs brush Liam’s nipples, barely hard enough to register but still ricocheting through Liam’s nervous system, and trace down the divots of his triceps. 

Liam manages to stay calm, almost painfully hard again from the attention and the unfolding topographical maps of sensation, but he’s pleased with his control. It seems like the least worrying thing when Louis picks his hand up, traces a fingernail in swirls of secret script over his palm, until Louis lines his own hand up with Liam’s. They’re matched, palm to palm, fingers splayed out together, but everything about Liam’s is bigger. It’s broader, and his fingers are longer, and he can feel Louis’ fingerprints against him and wishes they would brand. Louis bites each of Liam’s fingertips where they’re peeking out above his own, his lips soft and sure and his tongue moving wickedly over the whorls. Something about the feel of it, and the sight of it through the thin darkness, makes Liam feel too big for his body. “My turn,” he nearly growls, and Louis laughs as Liam rolls them easily.

He’s not quite strong enough or unaffected enough not to indulge himself for a moment when he’s in place, rutting his precome-slick cock against the soft skin of Louis’ belly and nearly turning inside out with how good it feels. Louis isn’t helping - or maybe he is - arching up off of the bed and into Liam’s short thrusts. Louis realizes that Louis is hard again, too, that just touching Liam has been enough for Louis. 

He takes his time with Louis, because honestly, he’ll never quite get this chance again. He loved Louis like this, and he loves him now, but this was the Louis who ruined him and then put him back together in a way that made more sense than he had before, who was a source of awe and inspiration and infatuation for Liam. This was a boy who made Liam feel more successful than any of their hard-won awards could, who was - is - both confident and unsure, mischievous and unbelievably thoughtful, always gorgeous. He wants to memorize the feel of Louis under his hands and between his knees and under his skin so that it’ll be there, warm and sweet, the next time he touches his own Louis, like nesting doll iterations of his favorite person in the world. 

It’s clear, then, (after Liam has sent a fleet of shivers chasing each other across Louis’ skin, an armada down his spine, an army against his pulse), that they’re both worked up and growing increasingly impatient.

“D’you want to try something else?” Liam asks, both of his hands stilled in their favorite place against Louis’ waist, thumbs soothing mesmerizingly against Louis’ warm sides.

“God, please,” Louis says, almost a gasp, apparently more gone than even Liam’s realized. He clamors off, his dick bobbing hopefully at the change. “Up you get,” Liam instructs, tapping Louis’ side until he rolls onto his front, and Liam hops off the bed to rummage in his bag for the lube. He takes a quick moment to thank whatever deity or force of the universe both allowed this _and_ made sure the lube was in _his_ bag tonight.

“Do you trust me?” Liam asks when he reaches the bed again, running his palm in broad strokes down Louis’ back, damp with sweat and tensed in anticipation. 

He turns his head against the pillow so he can see Liam, even through the dark, and says “ _yes_ ” with such vehemence that Liam doesn’t question him again.

He helps Louis lift his hips and slides an extra pillow underneath, lumpy and overstuffed and perfect for the situation at hand. Louis is breathing deeply, and it soothes Liam, helps him even his own breathing out, tension in him he hadn’t even recognized. This is a big deal; massive, even. He knows Louis likes teasing, but this isn’t the time for it. He just doesn’t want to hurt him, above all.

Liam murmurs quietly as he works, hardly even listening to himself as he drizzles lube on his own fingers and then, when it’s warm, against Louis’ hole, trying to find little moments of contact and reassurance between them as he goes. “You’re so good, Lou,” he says, the pads of his first two fingers rubbing gently in the slick against where Louis is clenching and needy. “Always so good for me, so so good, so willing - ”

It’s easier than Liam expects, the press of his first finger, though he’s going slowly and carefully as he can bear. This feels like both a gift and a test. Louis is remarkably relaxed, his head turned sideways still and two of his own fingers in his mouth, giving him something to focus on. Liam eases the tip of his finger in, then back out, and then in again a little further, adding more lube as he goes until the noises are almost embarrassing. Or, they would be, if they weren’t so hot.

By the time Liam manages to slide his entire pointer finger in, Louis is making tiny, whimpering noises around the fingers in his mouth, his hips both trying to rut down into the pillow for friction away from Liam’s fingers and backwards, too, right up into it. Liam places his other hand in the small of Louis’ back, where it’s already swayed impossibly far. It’s the place he likes to press against when they’re posing together at award shows, and where he slips his hand up under Louis’ vest to seek out his warmth when Louis’s making tea, bleary eyed in the mornings. It seems to settle Louis, just enough that when Liam asks if he can add a second finger, Louis’ nod is eager but not desperate.

Finding Louis’ prostate is just as fun as it usually is, his yelp completely undisguised and the careless rutting of his hips suddenly pointed, seeking, grinding back up against Liam as he gasps out his approval. It’s clear he’s close, his body an overstrung violin, his fingers fallen out of his slack mouth and little moans tripping their way from his throat as Liam’s fingers fuck into him carefully. “Liam,” he manages once, and it’s a little bit of deja vu. “Liam, stop,” he says, and Liam does instantly, his fingers stilling and then easingly slowly out of the hot, wet clutch of Louis’ body. 

“Are you alright, babe?” he asks, apprehensive.

“I just want to be closer with you, please,” Louis says in his very smallest voice. Liam nearly chokes in his rush, clamoring ungracefully up the bed to settle near Louis’ head, stroking his clean hand through the sweaty hair at Louis’ nape.

Louis manages to draw himself up, reaches for Liam imploringly until Liam pulls him farther up and in. He settles Louis into his lap until they’re facing each other, until he can see his face as clearly as possible, his hands holding Louis against him by his arse, their cocks flush together between their stomachs. Louis’ eyes flutter closed, and Liam plants sweet, tiny kisses all over his face: the corner of his lips, the crinkles next to his eyes, the dip at the top of his nose between his lovely arching brows.

Without opening his eyes, Louis leans his head forward against Liam’s shoulder and raises up on his knees, reaching between them so that when he settles back down, Liam’s cock has been pushed underneath him, between the slick heat of his cheeks. It’s unexpected and overwhelming and Liam has to close his eyes too, accepts that there’s a part of all of this that has felt out of his control from the beginning. He works with Louis, the slow, dirty grind of the two of them, their bodies, their sweat and heads bowed together, noses against cheeks and hands on waists and necks and elbows and anywhere they can touch.

Liam’s heart adds in a fluttery extra half beat every time his dick catches on the rim of Louis’ slick arsehole, and it doesn’t take long for him to feel the world crumbling from underneath him, like sand at the beach that looks steady but opens up to swallow his feet beneath it.

“Louis, are you ready,” he pants, reaching between them to thumb again over Louis’ cockhead, making him bite against Liam’s collarbone in retaliation. 

“Yeah,” he rasps, and then, without warning, clenches, bearing down on Liam’s cock beneath him.

It rumbles through Liam like his heart is a race car engine, like the jungle as rain breaks, his hands going nearly numb against Louis with the force of his orgasm. He’s almost too gone to recognize that Louis is coming wet and warm again, at least doesn’t realize until Louis wraps his arms all the way around Liam and hauls him in, gripping him so tightly that his cock is left spasming weakly between them. Their heartbeats are hammering out an unsteady rhythm together, and Louis doesn’t ease up the hug for a long, long while.

-

After they’ve cleaned up, their movements orgasm-saturated and languid, Louis curls sleepily into Liam's broad side, slipping a warm hand underneath him to press against the flat of Liam's shoulder blade. The impending morning doesn’t seem particularly concerning, nor does the apparent rift in time space continuum, nor does anything, really, aside from this.

“That was bloody great, Li,” Louis says, holding his hand up for the worlds’ sleepiest fist bump. Liam is almost too satisfied and woozy and full to think, so he just reaches up and wraps his whole hand around Louis’ fist.

“Bloody great, indeed, Lou.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi to me on [tumblr](http://triharrytops.tumblr.com/)!


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